Faculty Council
Minutes of the meeting of October 13th 1997
Chairperson Jane Romal called the meeting to order at 4:02 PM.
1. A quorum was present. The Agenda was approved unanimously
2. The minutes of September 8 1997 were approved unanimously as orrected.
3. President's Report (Dr. Dennis Hefner):
Welcome back from the mini break. I hope you got a little bit of rest these last couple of days and are ready to go, to sprint I guess, to Thanksgiving break. A couple of quick things I wanted to report. The legislature is at a mini-session right now, and there are two items that we should be keeping our eyes on as this mini session moves forward. The first is the Pay Bill. That's to provide the money so that we can go forward with actual implementation of the UUP contract. Both parties and both sides of the house have said they are supportive of full funding of the pay bills. The Governor has come out publicly for full funding. It should be coming through; it just has not passed through the process yet. You haven't seen anything coming from me to move on implementation, because we can't do that until the Pay Bill passes. Hopefully within the next week or two there will be a public notice it's passed and we'll get materials out right away and move forward with the process. That's one to keep your eyes on.
A second one is that there is now a lot of discussion about the possibility of going forward with some capital construction projects. We have two that we are especially keen on. One is Mason Hall; this would be the design money so that we can start the renovation of Mason Hall. If we could get design money in this mini-session that would allow us to be going for construction money as early as this spring, and trying to get that moving forward. That would be wonderful if we could get that through. A second one that is in the hopper is for the construction money for the pool. That is still under consideration. We are hopeful that we are going to be able to get the funding this time, but it's not a hundred percent certain but we did have a good call last week. Jess Present picked up the phone and called, and said are there any projects you're interested in, and I've been told by people on the cabinet that he hadn't called us in a long, long time, maybe never to ask a question like that.
Second item just to let you know that the faculty position recom- mendations are due into me sometime this week. The Vice President and Deans have met with department chairs in collecting information. I met with the Long-Range Planning and Budget Committee, and they are going through their final deliberations. That should be coming in pretty soon. Looks like we'll be able to go out and be recruiting either fifteen or sixteen tenure track positions for this coming year. So we should be able to advertise these. I think that's really going to be a shot in the arm.
You've probably seen The Leader. If you haven't you probably will soon, it's a rather dramatic headline, "Violence in Fredonia Escalating." What this is referring to is a problem that we had down- town a week ago Saturday. Actually, it was early Sunday morning about two o'clock in the morning. There was some difficulties downtown outside the Water Street bars after they closed. Vice President Dmitri has had several meetings with the mayor and chief of police. I was in on one meeting last week. We have a meeting tomorrow night with the bar owners. There were some incidents of violence as it happened that evening. We had one student that was hit on the head with an umbrella that had one of those big wooden handles, was actually knocked unconscious. Had to have a MRI exam, fortunately it's going to be all right. Things got fairly serious that evening. There was a knife drawn on a particular person. It was not a good scene. This is one that you may hear a lot about in the classes. Frankly, I'd like to see more responsible actions on the part of the bar owners in terms of not encouraging students to excessively drink. In addition, I'd like to see enforcement of underage drinking laws in this town. Also I think we need to be very diligent in working with the students to encourage them to not use alcohol and see if we can tone this back a little bit. I did want to bring this to your attention. You'll probably hear some more about it in the papers in the next several weeks. I hope that we will be able to make some progress.
I brought a proposal that I'll pass around at the end. This is a proposal that's come forward to name the streets on campus, so that if you're going to direct somebody to a particular building on campus you would actually be able to give them directions. I know that is kind of a unique concept. We have a committee that has come up with some suggested names. There already has been one person that saw an early copy and had a few suggestions on some things that might want to be changed. I thought they were good suggestions. Consider this a working draft at this particular time; I did want to pass this out so you could all get a chance to look at it. It will be a topic coming up in the next couple of months before it's finalized.
Just to let you know I will be going to a meeting of the Presidents this coming Thursday. I've now been here nine months; this is the second meeting of the presidents. The Chancellor did not call this one; the Presidents have called it. We've decided that we are going to go forward and meet. We are meeting in Albany in the boardroom, we thought was was symbolic, so we are going to be meeting this Thursday on issues that we think are important to the system. We think campuses haven't had as much of a voice in what's occurring in the last few years or maybe the last several years. And we're going to try to be a little more active. So if you see a headline about me going away and don't know what happened, the meeting wasn't very successful. I think it's a good thing to be happening. I did want to let you know that it would occur. We did invite the Chancellor and his senior staff, and none will be there.
On a better note, I am pleased to announce that we have Presidents Awards Winners for excellence in two areas. There will be formal notification on the campus in writing as soon as we know what the topics are going to be and when the presentations are going to be. I did want to share with Faculty Council that the President's Award for Excellence in teaching is going to Bob Rogers from the Math Department and the President's Award for Excellence in Professional Service is going to Jurgen Bonse-Fay, Jurgen of course from Rockefeller Arts Center. I did want to let you know about both of those and you'll be getting formal notices.
The final item that I wanted to mention was I wanted to thank so many of you for participating in the Inauguration. And also once again to say what a magnificent job the School of Music and the students did at putting that concert together with only three weeks of preparation. I thought it was just outstanding. The Chancellor also was very impressed. That's good, we do want the Chancellor thinking good things about the campus as well as thinking about the campus ,and he was very impressed with what he saw and what occurred that particular day.
Ken Lucey: I was wondering if it would be possible to link the naming of the streets to the second capital campaign. Possibly, recognize large donors?
President Hefner: That's a great idea. In fact, when the committee was asked to come up with names they were asked to use only very generic names. So that if we wished to rename a street later after a particularly generous donor we would have that option. That's a good idea.
4. Chairpersons report (Jane Romal):
I will now turn the call for nominations over to Vince.
4a. Vince Courtney:
We are just going to the Faculty Council Chair and the Vice Chair today. The written call for nominations went out with a date for November 18 for the College Senate Secretary so I don't think it's fair to do the Secretary here since we don't have the closing date on the written nominations. The Governance Committee has not received any written nominations. Jane Romal however, has said that she would be willing to run again. Therefore, she is a nominee for Faculty Chair. Are there any other nominees from the floor?
The nominations were closed.
Vince Courtney: Is there any discussion?
Nancy Boynton: I move that the Secretary cast one ballot for Jane Romal.
The motion to re-elect Jane Romal Faculty Council Chair was passed with a unanimous vote.
Dan Jelski has agreed to be nominated to run again as the Vice Chair of Faculty Council. Are there any nominations from the floor?
Nancy Boynton: I move that the nominations be closed and that the secretary cast one ballot for Dan Jelski.
Vince Courtney: Any discussion on the motion?
The motion to re-elect Dan Jelski Faculty Council Vice-Chair was passed with a unanimous vote.
4b. Jane Romal:
The next item that I wanted to discuss is the formation of the search committee for the Vice President for Develop- ment and College Relations. We are supposed to vote on that at the November meeting, so if you or anyone you know wants to be on that committee, please let one of the Faculty Council Execs know about it. That's Moj, Dan, Vince, Julie or I. Then we will form the committee, talk it over with Dr. Hefner and nominate the committee at the next meeting. We will try to get the list out with the agenda so that you can see it in advance. Are there any suggestions or comments on that?
Jon Kraus: I think in the past when people filled out the preference lists they included whether or not they wanted to be included on a search committee. And they may not put forward their name or somebody else's because they would assume that you would use that preference list. Will you be using the preference list?
Jane Romal: Yes.
4c. We've always had a series of guest reports, and today we will be having Don Steward to report on the CIO area.
5. Dr. Steward (CIO):
What I'd like to tell you about is what's been going on over the summer if you haven't read the numerous publications we have. Over the summer, we put in a new student email system comprised of Digital Corp. Alpha Servers. I'm pleased to report that since the servers have been up they have been running continuously without failure. I'm very happy with that choice of servers, and I think the students are happy with the student email. On the faculty email server, I have installed the hardware along with the hardware for the Web-Server. These are Compaq 2500R file servers. They are installed in the computer center but the software is not loaded yet. We are waiting on an emergency power backup system to come so we can divide the load. That I expect should be up sometime around Thanksgiving break. So hopefully we will migrate files around Thanksgiving break and you'll have a newer high performance system for your faculty email and web services. The modem pool situation, I understand, is horrible. I've to use it. I'm looking at alternatives to the modem pools that we have now. We are looking at expanding the modem pools as much as we can, looking at perhaps a separate pool for the faculty, or going to an outside vendor, an Internet Service Provider as other colleges have done. I'm not ready to announce a plan at this time.
The next piece of news is the mainframe continues to run well. We could add some more memory to the mainframe so that things would be a little faster. However today we discovered that our Net Op 3, Net Op 4, our Sun Servers that manage the network are running out of memory and running out of power. I've investigated and I've asked Bruce to come up with some replacement ideas that we might use to improve the service. What this will do you is when you ask for an address on campus you will get the result faster, so that the speed will pick up. Hopefully that's all you'll notice. Right now, we noticed things were a little slow this morning, and we had to restart one of the Net Op servers and then things picked up considerably. So that's pretty much what's on my plate right now. Over the summer we've done some more smart classrooms. We've finished off another smart classroom this weekend. I'm hoping to work with the M&O people to come up with a three -year schedule for smart classrooms, which I'd like to bring forward and let the faculty choose which room they think are more important. You select the order and we'll build them to your request. Are there any questions that I could answer right now?
Joe Straight: Where are we with wiring the dorms, connecting the dorms?
Dr. Steward: The wiring project in the dorms. Right now, we have pulled in fiber to the two quads. So fiber is in the basement of the two quads. Now wiring it to the rooms is going to be put off until this summer. Tony Chereguso is managing a project where we are going to get bidders to see who can get in to do the dorms. We are looking at right now doing the dorm corner, (where the Bills stay) early, because we understand if we don't do that, the chances of getting that area done are very slim. We are looking at doing that over the Christmas break if we can. That would leave the unwired buildings would be the two Quads, Rockefeller, Mason Hall and Dods Steel. We are working on Mason Hall right now; we'll probably go from Mason Hall to Rockefeller. The last building we think is Dods Steel. For anybody who has any concern with the schedule please get in touch with me. If anybody has any particular hard need they need met, we'll try to do it early. Also along that line, where the FSA offices are, Gregory Hall, there are I believe about a hundred rooms that are not wired and we're going to try to do those ourselves. We'll be putting in all brand new equipment for the students. I'm also looking at seeing what we can do at providing some higher speed Internet service provider. We can use what we have now, or we've had an offer on the table from D&F maybe to provide us some serious bandwidth. In the order of a couple of T1's or maybe an OC1 sonic channel which is 51 mega bits. I'm going to see what we can do about bandwidth and we might come out with a request for proposals for some bandwidth. These are things I'm looking at.
Pablo Gion-Fanjul: There are certain dorms like Grissom, Kasling, Alumni and Nixon. They have their stuff, they computers in a room that should be the lab, but that stuff hasn't been setup and it's been there since before the summer. Do you know when those labs are going to be operational?
Dr. Steward: The lab in Alumni is operational now with one printer hooked up to one station. As soon as we get a printer-sharing device, it will be operational. The other labs in the dorms, some of them are set up now. Others are waiting on either the tables to be assembled or for us to get fiber optic cable in so we can hook up network connections. We're looking at possibly this semester for all of them.
Pablo Gion-Fanjul: Certain dorms like Chautauqua that have no labs. Will there be labs there in the future?
Dr. Steward: The quads that have nothing right now, we are going to try to wire a lab in one of those buildings. Unfortunately with the staff we have and the constraints, I won't be able to do everything immediately. However I have promised that next year everybody will be wired and I intend to stick to that. Unfortunately the older buildings that were wired now only have one Ethernet drop for twos students. We have come up with a method where we can split that wire and actually put two students on the same Ethernet cable. So we actually run two students out of one. It's not in accord to the BIA standard but it seams to work at this time, and I'll come back and address those buildings after everybody else is built. We'll try to do what we can do to make sure that the students get Ethernet capacity where they want it.
Ken Lucey: Is it correct that there is no Mac support on this campus, and if so when will that be rectified?
Dr. Steward: Well that's not correct, there is poor Mac support on this campus. I'll be honest about it. We don't have many people that are familiar with Macs. What I intend to do is I intend to ask for a professional staff person to manage the Mac Labs, particular attention to all the Mac labs, and to work with people who have Macs. What I have done today is I've asked Colin to get a hold of Paul Bowers and Carl Ferraro and see if we can't get a person in who is familiar with the Mac systems. Go in, go through all the labs, and fix everything that's wrong so the students won't have any problems with the Mac labs when midterms come up. What I've got to do is keep the Mac Labs going. If we don't have a person on staff, we'll farm out what's necessary to make sure that things continue to work. Then after we get through the crunch of this I'd like to sit down with the people in the Mac labs as a group and see if there is some better way to manage all the Mac labs.
MindaRae Amiran: I met last week with one of the Science Departments, which is not very happy about the smart classrooms. Thinks that they overall have not been a good investment. Judging by what every single person in that department said, it might make sense to wait up a minute and devise a brief questionnaire that could go out to faculty to find out what use really is being made of the smart classrooms and what need there is for them. Possibly in your office, I know there are some people who would be interested in developing the questions to be asked, and possibly your office could distribute this question- naire. Lets find out how widely this feeling is shared on campus. Obviously there are people who need and use the smart classrooms, but before we build any more of them it might be sensible to see what people who have tried them and been disappointed, what their real needs are.
Dr. Steward: That's a good point because I've only heard positive comments about the smart classrooms, and this is the first time that somebody's said that there is something they didn't like. Now maybe it's something simple that we can add; an enhancement?
Minda Rae Amiran: It had to do with pedagogy of using them. It wasn't that it lacked a widget of some kind but that it didn't really for them do the job that they thought it should be doing with the students, so they were teaching in the smart classroom but very rarely using its facilities.
Dr. Steward: I'd be glad to send out a questionnaire and take comments and questions. I think we have a good start on the smart classrooms. They are the best smart classrooms I've ever seen actually, they are integrated quite well and they're not very expensive.
Minda Rae Amiran: It wasn't a complaint that these are poor smart classrooms. It was that the department felt that they weren't really able to teach their science, it didn't work for the student's pedagogically, not mechanically.
Dr. Steward: Well the smart classrooms aren't for everybody.
Minda Rae Amiran: Maybe they are not for this style of teaching so it would make sense to find out how many more of them we actually need.
Michael Grady: Are there any plans to increase the amount of communication between your office and the faculty as a whole? We used to get a newsletter from the Computer Center and we haven't had one of those for about two years. On the web, I think the AIT web page has a section that says announcements. I click on that once in awhile to see if it's changed and it hasn't changed since last April I think. Many people are very curious about the plans that are being put in place, also what's new, and what's happening, changes in telephone numbers etc. There just doesn't seem to be much overall communication between your office and the campus as a whole. I was wondering if there are any plans for either a newsletter or an updated web page that could keep us informed.
Dr. Steward: It turns out that I happen to have a PR intern working for me this semester. What she's doing is she's going around to each one of my departments and writing up what they do, so that you have a better understanding of what people do in the areas. The web mistress whom I would like to use unfortunately is away on family emergency, that's Sandra Lewis. When Sandra Lewis gets back I might ask her to personally manage the web page for me and see if we can't keep things a little more current. I'm not happy with the timeliness of the information on the web page, I'll tell you that. I think you are correct in stating that that is a good form for getting things out. Plans, I'd like to be able to put plans on there and updates on how we're doing. I believe a web page is an excellent public relation medium. I'd want to make sure we put good things on there and not a lot of bad things, but I think we should be honest.
Jon Kraus: There used to be a telephone number that you could dial if you had problems from your office or from your home when you were trying to access the server. I've tried that once or twice when there were problems and the voice giving information was something dating from early last summer, so it's obviously nothing has been attended to or kept up with. Is this something that you plan to renew, and actually use? Sometimes you don't know if it's a problem with your own computer or whether it's a problem with the system. An easy way of finding out is calling up and if there is a prerecorded announcement saying, "Yes, there is a problem with the system; it will be down for twelve hours,"etc. Then you know.
Dr. Steward: Yes we are planning to use that number. We are working on organizing a help desk. Plans are in the works. What I can do is I can make sure that that number is kept current with the current status on it.
Jon Kraus: Presumably people in AIT do know when there is a problem and somebody gets to it. It would be nice to let people know. The other thing which I think you already mentioned was the dialup service for accessing the AIT network which seems to be busy all of the time. Have the number of connections been reduced?
Dr. Steward: There are a couple of modems that are out of service. The modem pool consists of only forty modems. I'd like to bring it up to forty-eight modems as soon as I can and then I'd like to look at buying some entirely new equipment and bringing it up to seventy- two modems. What has happened is that we've had a tremendous number of attempts on the modem pool. Last month 38,000 attempts didn't get through. Now that doesn't mean 38,000 different people didn't get through. I was six of those attempts myself on one night, but we do have statistics that I'm getting from D&F telephone to tell me how many people try and don't get through. When we run out of lines that we can use on the existing system, then we will have to do something else. We have to pay attention and make sure that no one loses service while we move service up.
6. Vice Chair Jelski had no report.
Chair Romal: Over here on the counter by the way in the front we have a report on the Task Force on Student Access to Classes from Len. You may pick up a copy of that if you want when you leave. That was requested so there they are.
7. Faculty Senator's report (Moj Seyedian):
I have just two points in addition to my report that was attached to the agenda. The first is the report on the task force. We had a campus wide meeting in September and it was well attended by all of the people who were interested. We basically agreed with the proposals, and we faxed them to the Senate. The second thing is that there is going to be, I just got this notice from the Senate last week, a Board of Trustees Public Hearing on October 28th from 1:00 PM to 2:00PM. The board wants to hear from people in SUNY about SUNY- wide issues, so I would ask you to publicize this.
8a. Governance (Vince Courtney):
I'd like to announce that Gregory Prechtl was elected to the teaching faculty seat on the FSA Board of Directors, and Terry Tzitzis was elected to the non-teaching faculty seat on the FSA board. Also the governance committee in its October meeting changed the terms of Idalia Torres and Terry Mosher to 1999 expirations instead of 2000 that balances us out a little bit better than we were.
The faculty census is in almost a hundred percent now. I've got the teaching faculty figured, but I don't have the professional management confidential figures. The faculty census arranged by old divisions comes out to 126.18 FT equivalent for Arts Education and Humanities, which is thirteen seats and 119.49 FTE for Natural and Social Sciences which would be twelve seats.
If we look at it from the new divisional perspective we have 121.51 FTE Arts and Humanities versus 124.16 FTE for Natural and Social Sciences and Professional Studies, another twelve seats. So there isn't really a great difference depending on which way you look at it.
Because of that, the Executive Committee and the Governance Committee agreed that we should probably move to the new divisional structure as soon as practicable. In order to do that the governance committee recommends that two members of the Council currently representing Education be made NSSPS members as of January 1998. And the three members who are now NSS and who are from Health, Physical Education and History be considered to be Arts and Humanities Members as of January 1998. And we also recommend that the Academic Affairs Committee be reconstituted under the new divisional list immediately because that will help solve a problem we have in the membership of that committee. We have three Art Education and Humanities members there and one of those is currently from Education. That was an error in the election last spring when inadvertently one of the members was not realized to have been actually sitting through 1998. That would clean up that problem.
We also recommend that the remaining standing committees be allowed to have their current membership through this year. With the new elections, we will be able to do it by attrition, which is the standard procedure that's used in Faculty Council over the last several changes in the divisional structure. The only exception to that would be the GCP Committee, which has only members from 1999 on. I would recommend that the Governance Committee be allowed to poll the membership of that committee to find out if there are any members who would be willing to relinquish their seat and therefore allow it to be elected into the NSSPS and the A&H model this coming spring. I'd like to move that as a motion of the Governance committee.
Bob Deming: On Faculty Council, are you planning to fill the vacancies?
Vince Courtney: Yes, the problem I'm having right now is that I have no record of the election results from last year so I have no names to go to for the next seat. If anybody knows the people who want to serve on Faculty Council from the NSSPS Division, let me know.
Bob Deming: There is also an Arts Education and Humanities Faculty Council seat. Anufrac's was vacant all last year.
Vince Courtney: All last year too? Thank you for letting me know that.
The motion was passed unanimously.
Vince Courtney: There is one other concern that I have. I don't believe the GCP Committee has met yet, is that true?
Cheryl Drout: The full committee has not met yet and elected a chair. That will be happening a week from Friday.
Vince Courtney: OK, once there is a chair of that would you please let me know.
Joe Straight: Do the bylaws speak to or do they have the language in the bylaws about Arts Education and Humanities and Natural and Social Sciences. In other words, are those divisions mentioned in the bylaws?
Vince Courtney: No, I think the bylaws are currently under the old division still. So we really need to do a bylaws change.
8b. Academic Affairs (Joseph Straight):
The Academic Affairs Committee just has one recommendation to bring to council at this time, and that is that the four-year guarantee be approved. The basic idea of the four-year guarantee is that the students upon declaring a major will be offered the four year guarantee provided they have suitable preparation and have prepared themselves by taking the appropriate courses. To be ready to start the major and then they have conditions placed on them on as far as making sure they keep up with their program of study, maintain full- time status and all of that kind of good stuff. The onus is the college to provide the advising and the classes they need on a scheduled basis so that they can graduate in four years. That's the motion that we're bringing to council.
George Sebouhian: I'm wondering, the students it seems to me, that they will be coerced and forced into selecting a major very early which means they will not have the freedom to experiment or to change their minds.
Dr. Straight: Originally when the four-year guarantee was first brought forward it was only going to be available to students declaring a major at the time of entry. There has been some attempt to allow students who declare their major at some later point to also sign up for the four-year guarantee.
Vivian Conover: We didn't think that it would be fair to not allow the General Studies students to at least be able to participate if they were able to make up their minds within that first year, although I do agree with you that it does seem to at least step up the exploration process.
Dr. Sebouhian: I'm also wondering what this means in some overall sense, although this gets too abstract, about vocational intentions, parental intentions, economic connotations, people selecting the four- year option because they can't afford to go beyond four years etc. Also picking up on what you said about the onus on the College; does this mean that students who enter the program will get preferential treatment for the selection of courses over other students? And how will that be decided? Another question I have is: what is the responsibility of the advisors, the departments and College? Will they be subject to the possibility of lawsuits? Are they going to be asked to spend more time with these students than they do with other students? Are they also going to expect to be giving preferential treatment to these people? All of this I am very, very worried about. I think it's a lot of PR, this is a personal subjective judgment on my part, but I've thought about it and thought about it, and I don't think I can move from that position. I hope you can persuade me otherwise.
Dr. Straight: I can only speak to one of the points you raised that we did talk about quite a bit. I think this does mean that we'd have to be very careful about our advising. I think we've been moving this way gradually all along, that is to put much more importance on advising to make sure that people have the time to do a good job with advising. That is going to be even more the case if we go to this four-year guarantee. It does put extra burdens on advisors as well as on students to make sure that, for example, they notify the advisor if they make schedule changes. One hope is that this process will help to improve the whole advising situation. Both the faculty and the students will take it more seriously than they do now.
Dr. Sebouhian: This raises another question. How do you improve advising besides saying, "we should improve advising"? What is it that could be done? Put a standard time for advising so that perhaps in place of classes meeting, the advising day(s) could be conducted over the entire campus, and all students would be given a minimum of a half an hour whether they are a part of this program or not. Let real advising take place and we could look into this and also raise the question of what is meant by "real advising", besides putting down courses on an op-scan sheet.
Len Faulk: I did after our first meeting of the year when that issue was brought up, did raise that at the Calendar Committee for them to consider, an advising day or two. They have that idea before them now. I guess a lot of what this is is certainly what we are doing now. The suggestion on the four-year guarantee is that when a freshman is first advised, that the department would look at the four years. With the students so they would know what kind of schedules are expected. Most departments have recommended courses, not maybe by semester but for the program, and an attempt will be made with the students at the very beginning. It varies, some departments do that now, maybe some others do not, but the student would have an idea of what is expected of them in terms of a major. That's part of the initial contract, to include a sheet that the advisor would go over to suggest how indeed this could be met in four years. This process is an ongoing process, things change.
Nancy Boynton: The second point says that if they don't declare right away when they're coming in, it says having completed the preparatory courses for their major. Does that include ,say at least some of the freshman level courses? Or does that mean the high school background?
Len Faulk: The first point refers to preparatory courses in high school. The second one is ,if you're a general studies freshman, it depends on the major, let's say a GS freshman who was going into music may have missed some of the courses during that freshman year which become difficult for them to take in four year. That is what's meant by it.
Dr. Boynton: What about second majors and so-forth?
Dr. Faulk: We only guarantee the first major. We have a pamphlet that we are handing out in addition to this which will say; well, Can I take a different major or minor? Sure. So that raises some of those issues and then answers the points.
Dr. Straight: The pamphlet is also going to say that it's OK not to graduate in four years. There are many good reasons for taking more that four years including things like study abroad, adding extra majors, adding extra minors. This whole pamphlet is going to try to say it's not a bad thing to take more than four years to graduate.
Tom Rywick: It will also say that even if they miss one or two of the criteria there is still a very real possibility that they can graduate in four years and that's one thing we have to make clear.
Ken Mantai: Is there any estimate on how many students will take advantage of this?
Dr. Straight: I would say most, we know how many people come in declaring a major, how many people are general studies. I would think that most of those coming in ready to declare a major would be able to at least consider the four-year guarantee. Supposedly, they've had the proper courses in high school that they are at least eligible for the four-year guarantee.
Dr. Mantai: How many of them would actually take advantage of that, actually opt for it?
Ken Lucey: I see according to the memo that we received separately, we are not being asked to approve a specific document. That being the case I'm not actually clear about what we are being asked to approve. That it's a good thing that student's graduate in four years?
Dr. Straight: I guess it's the concept that we should have a four- year guarantee. That's why, I agree with George in the sense that there are lots of questions that this raises. George pointed out some of them. There is in some sense you have to say, as an act of faith, "I think we'll be able to work these things out." Questions about whether this is going to give any advantage to these students in getting courses. I would say no.
Vivian Conover: No is the answer to that.
Dr. Straight: There are lots of questions that people can raise about this and until we try it, until we actually start to implement it, we aren't going to know all the details about it. I think you have to ask yourself, do I trust that our people can handle this and work it out in a good way so it will be beneficial for the College. If you feel that, "No this is something that is going to raise a whole new can of worms and we're going to raise all kinds of problems, the things you mentioned about law suits and so on," then I'd say vote no.
Carl Ferraro: I've gotten bits and pieces of this and I know there is some movement from Albany and so on. If someone who advocates this could just quickly go over very briefly the upsides that we're looking at to this. What is the impetus of this as opposed to just telling students that they can do this and they should do that if they're prudent?
Dr. Hefner: I'll admit I've been supportive of moving in this direction for several reasons. One it tends to give a little better focus for advising especially from the student's side. Students start taking advising a little more seriously. They tend to go in to see the faculty member early in the process. I've been on two campuses where we had had a program such as this. Tthe experience on those campuses has been only about fifteen percent of the students avail themselves of the service. I would like to see it higher quite frankly but many of the students look and say, "Oh my God" all of these expectations that I would need to meet. They don't sign up as much as they would. I'm hoping it would be higher here, but to be realistic, you can estimate around fifteen percent or so.
In terms of lawsuits, on the campuses where I've been there hasn't been a lawsuit. These are California Campuses that are known for their lawsuits, so I think that's a remote possibility. But if it happens we do have a Director of Advising who's a lawyer. It does give the students a chance early on ,though to go in and sit down with a faculty member and lay out a plan. We recognize that students are going to change majors, but it is an opportunity I think to put a little greater emphasis on advising. I haven't seen a downside on the campuses where I've been.
Bob Deming: How does this provide a greater opportunity for classes?
Dr. Hefner: Well the students very early on, at least in discussions are going to start saying, "Oh, I need to start meeting with my advisors on time," and "Oh it will help me get classes if I get in early, and go through the computer registration process." It heightens all of those positive expectations that we have of our students very early on, by having them focus on this particular process. The plan would be stapled into the student's folder.
Bob Deming: I know we're not supposed to be dealing with the specifics of the language of this contract but I raise this question with the chairs of Arts and Humanities, What does number one mean?
Vivian Conover: It means that if they have to take University Calculus, their high school transcript suggests that they're prepared for it.
Bob Deming: The department doesn't make those decisions now; those decisions are made in admissions.
Vivian Conover: What we anticipate for this is that it will change for the summer and for summer orientation so far discussing putting a box there where the summer orientation advisor will check the file and make sure that this student is ready for that major, consulting a form that we have which tells us what level you should be at. If you've completed the prerequisites for the math for example. Are they ready for English Composition is all they should be ready for.
Bob Deming: It doesn't matter. They are all required to take it unless they go through any one of three procedures to waive it. This has nothing whatsoever to do with this contract.
Vivian Conover: Are you suggesting that we eliminate the "English and" then?
Bob Deming: Frankly, I don't care what you eliminate because you're just telling me that the specific language doesn't matter. All of the other recommendations for editing that we suggested in the Arts and Humanities Chairs have not appeared in this document.
Vivian Conover: This is the one that we are using for the students that we promised that we would implement this guarantee for who are here now. We fully expect changing this for the next year's class.
Bob Deming: That's not my question, my question is, does psychology as a department have any stipulation that they want to make about a student's English skills. Not that it's what English expected, but psychology, history, communications, or biology. If that's what the language means...
George Sebouhian: Doesn't the language simply mean that if the student has to do remedial work, that is pertinent to graduation in four years, isn't that what we're saying?
Bob Deming: That's not determined by the department, the language doesn't say that. That's determined by admissions. It says, "as determined by their department."
Joe Straight: I don't think admissions determines that. Admissions makes a preliminary determination, they admit a student, and they admit them to a major.. What Vivian is talking about is in the summer when we actually sit down with the students we often times say, well you need to go back and take Pre-Calculus. You're not ready to start University Calculus I. Now I'm not saying we would in the Math department. I think this is something we would talk about as a department, but perhaps we would say look, is a student has to go back and take Pre-Calculus then we won't initially right of the bat sign the four-year guarantee. We'll say if you take pre-calculus fall semester and the then take University Calculus spring semester and are doing OK, then you can come in. When you come in and sit with your advisor for the spring semester at that point we will sign the four- year guarantee. It really is the department that can look at it and say you can be in this major, but we are not going to sign the four year because you're not ready to start this major at the level you need to start at to graduate in four years.
Bob Deming: So that means that 25 different departments are going to assess whether students have adequate English skills.
George Browder: They all have to take English Comp, there is no remedial course here for English Comp, but for math there are prerequisites for the required courses, so scratch "English and" then as determined by the Math department which sets the standards.
Vivian Conover: We do have a remedial English class. Isn't "Writing in the Arts and Science" for EDP a remedial English class?
Jane Romal: But that has nothing to do with departments.
Bob Deming: What if a student changes something after having met the advisor and reports that to the advisor. What happens if the advisor says, "No you can't do that." Does that automatically negate the contract?
Vivian Conover: No, one must use a formal method of notice so there will be a contract nullification form.
Bob Deming: Would that be a defacto violation of the contract?
Vivian Conover: Definitely, and it would be very easy for a student to violate the contract, does that mean that he or she cannot graduate in four years, no. This is a four-year college; it would be fraud for us to suggest that a student needed more than four years.
Joyce Stephens: I do not wish to offend, but my immediate response is that it just strikes me as a sales pitch and a gimmick. If it is, then I don't think we should take it seriously. On the other hand, if it's a serious effort then I think we should take it very seriously and answer some of George's questions before we pass it.
Michael Grady: I think it gives the impression that usually students can't graduate in four years. You're going to guarantee it for this special class of students, which will be only about ten percent that they'll be able to guarantee in four years. It is often important for a student to repeat a class, say a student gets a D in a very important introductory class. I'll often suggest they repeat it, but I could imagine the student being so concerned that they'll lose their four-year guarantee that they'll refuse to take my advice to repeat the class.
Joe Straight: We'd look at that stuff with the pamphlet that's going to be handed out with this and through it stress that the four-year guarantee is very low on your priorities. Don't worry about the four- year guarantee. It's a nice thing to have but there are more important things for the decisions that you're going to make about your college career than the four-year guarantee. I feel that we can get that message through.
Dick Weist: We are advertising now that we are very competitive in the system because our students do finish in four years. I tend to agree that this gives the other impression, that this is contradictory to that claim. This is a new program that we're starting that somehow will bring us up to speed in getting students through in four years.
Joe Straight: We definitely have to be careful how this is sold. There was some negative publicity when SUNY was going through the worst of the budget cuts. I know summer orientation was really bad two years ago trying to get students into classes. I think that we got to the point where we probably needed this guarantee. I think that since President Hefner came, and more emphasis was placed on student access to classes, we've improved, but two years ago, I think we needed this purely to tell ourselves this is what we're committed to. I think that there is some negative publicity out there about SUNY, and this will help.
Pablo Gion-Fanjul: The main concern I hear from students is, "Can we get classes?" With this program, freshmen can see, yes this is going to take a lot of commitment from my side, but I'm actually having the side of the faculty helping me out. Also it will encourage some advisors to actually do some work. Some of the advisors basically just sign the class form. I'd appreciate it if that person were actually going to help me through. Freshman year there's people coming in my office and saying, "what do I take?" Advisors don't help them out. We need the help from the advisors, and this is a great way of doing it.
Bob Deming: This is a rather ugly scenario: It's July and the legislature has not approved our budget, if the administration has done what it's done in the past which is not allow courses to be offered other than what is represented by faculty there, would we have to rescind this?
Dr. Hefner: I think the approach that we need to take is we need to put classes as the number one priority on this campus. That's something that I'm committed to. I think that's something that most people in this room are very much committed too. That is something that we are going to be doing. We have to be providing access to classes for students. When I got here on campus, I walked around, and I kept talking with students in line and in the Williams Center and going over to the residence halls. The thing I kept hearing was they couldn't get full schedules, they couldn't get into their classes. I think that was hurting us here on campus. I think it was devastating out off campus that word getting around, and I'm very interested in turning that perception around. Both the perception and also the reality.
David Ludlam: I'm very much for this, I think it would be a good idea. In Education, we have sixty-five advisees per faculty member, and I keep saying that. We do, I think, a very good job advising but it puts more responsibility onto us. That's one thing I'm very concerned with. The other thing that I'm concerned with is that we have a concentration, which is required for graduation. It's mathematics or history or whatever the other subject that they have to take thirty credits of course work in. Are you going to guarantee that our students will get into those? I have had students who have had to go fire years because we could not get them the courses. It's nothing to do with Education, but I cannot get my students into those courses that are required. I don't want to find myself in a position, as an advisor, signing something that I know can't be done.
George Sebouhian: Perhaps some advisors are irresponsible. The ones I know are not. The instructors are also part of this. The instructors I know, including me, have allowed a number of people over the cap, not violating the fire code. I've done that this semester; I've done it every semester, which I can. Precisely because the students cannot get into the courses they need in time for graduation. I believe we are all committed to a four-year graduation. What happens here with the word guarantee, is it puts it in a different category entirely where our own commitment, the sense of our own responsibility is taken away from us and is put into administrative hands. I feel that that is not worthwhile. It should stay with us in terms of improving the advising arrangement and improving the contact with the students. That's where I think it should happen, not in an overall word like guarantee.
Vivian Conover: Spoken like a true English department person, and by that I mean that they do spend a lot of time with their students, but frankly Pablo is right. There are other departments who need some professional development and advising. This is why I'm behind the four-year guarantee now, however reluctantly initially, because it will help some advisors get professional development that they need, some help that they need. This is not with respect to the issue that David brings up in Education. That's a separate that issue that I do not know how to resolve, lines I guess, but that's not my area. If it's your experience that you do spend a lot of time advising, then this will just be par for the course for you, but for those advisors who do just sign the course selection forms, I have no interest in becoming a police officer on this, but I do know that students need the one on one contact with their advisor. It's part of the faculty member's job. It way not be high on the list of those things that are considered for promotion and tenure and all of that, but maybe some inspection into that area should take place as well.
Greg Prechtl: I know Brockport has this guarantee, and I assume that maybe Buffalo State, but do Binghamton and Geneseo State have this guarantee?
Carl Farraro: I've heard all of this and I have some concerns myself. On the other hand, we've listened to the students, we know what the marketplace is, and we need to be responsive in some way. That part of our job, to be contemporary and progressive. I'm hoping we can move in a proactive way, whether it's cleaning up some of the language, getting someone to look at these class offering issues. Look at these kinds of issues perhaps we can do something with that. This is my fourth year and I'm from the SUNY system once upon a time. To see what Geneseo has done on it's own behalf, and changing perceptions of that institution, and then moving forward by changing perception into dollars and so on. That's what I have to say.
Ken Lucey: I have a question about the way this is being envisioned by those who will be called upon to implement it. Is the understanding that with the paperwork, you just send it in. And just by reading it the advisor would know how to do this, or is the assumption that advisors would need to be trained to know how to do this?
Joe Straight: Advisors may need some help with this and other things. Part of that is going to take place in departments. Part of it is going to take place in the Office of Academic Advising. I think one thing that would happen, and I see this in a number of departments. They have some sample schedules and that type of thing, so you know what a typical program would look like and how they can actually do this thing in four years. That helps to keep them on track. More attention paid on the part of both advisors and students as to when courses are offered, knowing that a particular course is only offered in the fall or a particular course is only offered every other spring. I think the idea is that the advisors are going to need help with this and other things.
Len Faulk: Our plan is to go to department chairs and then train them and have them train their advisors. It is quick and we're going to have to do ongoing training in this regard. I think Dave Ludlum brought up a good point about coordination between the departments, and Education is one of those. I think tomorrow for example we've set up a course planning committee to actually deal with that. That's an ongoing problem, that's not because on the guarantee. We recognize that and recognize that we have to do further advance planning.
George Browder: I'm a little bit confused by some of the things people keep talking about as being some kinds of new things. The contract, there is nothing new in the contract per say. It's always been that if students did these things they would graduate in four years. Advising was advising students on doing these things. I don't need any training and I don't see why any advisors would need any training to advise students to do these things. What is new here is that administrators will have to solve the problems of offering classes, and that puts the pressure on them. If you've ever done course advisement, this is what the parents are looking for.
Debate was closed by a unanimous vote.
The motion was passed by a majority vote of nineteen in favor, five opposed with no abstentions.
A motion was made (Dick Weist) and passed that the language of the four-year guarantee come back to Faculty Council after finalized for approval.
8c. Planning and Budget (Jon Kraus):
Planning and Budget Committee has been working on this vision statement. It has made its report to the Vice President of Academic Affairs and will make its report to the President as well. We are asking Faculty Council to approve the vision statement. This is the child of many authors. In the latest process we produced a listserve to which you could email your comments. Most people emailed them to me and I forwarded them to the listserve. I received actually even more comments by mail. I would make a couple of comments about this vision statement. There are changes in this from what you saw in the past. They are substantial changes, and it is shorter. The major concern had to do with the citing of specific academic fields. There was a desire to keep this but to use broad enough language to include more of what makes Fredonia different from all the other colleges. We did change language to suggest that these are areas primarily where we have large numbers of students. We have other very valuable programs as well, but these are the areas where we have major numbers of students. The other major change that stands out is we have tried to incorporate future language in it that suggested this is part of what we will be doing in the future, not simply what we are doing in the present. A final thought before I open the floor to you, we could always do better and make more changes. When I listened to the Presidents inaugural address, he used the vision statement as it then was and used language from it and used ideas from it, and what impressed me was, in fact, that what we had was a usable document. There were ideas there from which we could draw upon to discuss what Fredonia's future would be like. That is really, what was essential and most important about it.
Ruthann Dusch: I had sent some suggestions last spring and I was really happy to see that many of us who suggested more emphasis on giving an international perspective to our students and I'm happy to see that mentioned here. I did have just one comment. I know perhaps we're supposed to hold our peace after your deadline but it did occur to me to ask. Since as an institution we really live or die on our reputation for quality I have some question about naming the programs in which we attract the largest numbers of people. Having such a certainty that these will continue to be the programs that draw large groups of people. Are we not taking a risk if this statement really means we are committed to these programs and we are positive they will continue to grow, are we not putting emphasis on trends. If these trends don't prove to continue, we'll suddenly find ourselves missing the next trend. For how long does this hold?
Jon Kraus: I think you're reading more into that than I would read into it. That is an area in which actually there are some changes but several of these programs are areas in which we have always had a large number of students, we are continuing to have a large number of students. There is no way we can commit ourselves. We can't commit future students to what they'll choose.
Ruthann Dusch: It's not intended to mean that these are the programs, which we know we will be totally committed to then? What I'm worried about is it seems to me with that wonderful new catalogue we have with that private school look to it, we've got to be careful to hold onto the core that makes this college quality, which is some of the basic liberal arts fields. I know we say that we are committed to excellence in the liberal arts, but then we seem to turn around and say but we are terribly committed to programs that draw large numbers of people. I'm just a bit concerned about that.
Jon Kraus: I don't know what to say to that except when we used language having to do to quality that also bothered a lot of people. There are many majors with smaller enrollment, which are very excellent quality, both in terms of their teaching and in terms of the faculty and other things.
Ruthann Dusch: I am happy about the international focus and I think it's important. It's long been the tradition here, I think, to emphasize the importance of encouraging our students to learn about other cultures. It strikes me that there is no mention of encouraging our students to meet another culture more than half way by learning their language. I'd just like to raise that issue.
Jon Kraus: It's one of many things you will not find in here.
Michael Grady: I think the language is much improved. One place reads a bit odd to me and that is the following: on the third bullet it says, "essential programs in the sciences including a unique under- graduate program in Recumbent Gene Technology". In the next bullet it says, "significant programs in psychology", that makes it sound like the author doesn't think psychology is a science because it's not under the category of sciences. I'm wondering why you didn't use the word natural sciences.
Jon Kraus: I think that's an excellent thought there. It was there before and it dropped out.
George Sebouhian: This is really minor, but it does speak to the problem that Ruth raised. I was suggesting in the document that I sent you editorial changes. I'm happy with the second version that we've received. I think it's much better. I think some of the future tenses within the future phrases are overdone. I'm just wondering if we can't agree on the substance of this and continue to tinker with it there.
I would be content with a motion, which was broad enough to permit editorial phrasing changes as we go along.
The vision statement was unanimously accepted with the idea that editorial comments will be accepted by the committee.
8e. Student Affairs (Vivian Conover):
The Student Affairs Committee met on September 30, and we discussed three substantive issues. One alcohol awareness, two the four-year guarantee, and three the use of Williams Center space.
On alcohol awareness, the committee has invited The Leader editor, advertising managers and their advisor to attend a Student Affairs Committee Meeting to discuss The Leader ads purchased by downtown bar owners. Specifically could the advertising managers persuade the bar owners to law up the bottomless glass drinking emphasis? I've spoken with Kenny Deacon who related that the downtown bar owners are so desperate for advertising that they will do whatever we say for awhile. In light of what transpired last weekend, I suspect that we will be hearing more about that from different corners. Some committee members and The Leader folks will be coming to the Student Affairs Committee. Some committee members also expressed their regret that our weekend hours do not help provide a useful alternative for students, but our emphasis so far will be on making the bar owners more socially responsible.
As to the four-year guarantee, I just informed the group of its implementation and that students should watch for specifics before course selection.
At President Romals' request Mike Lemieux, the Director of Campus Life, provided us with a memo depicting the Williams Center before and after the FSA consolidation of space. It establishes that the students have more space now. Vice President Dimitri informed us that a consultant has been hired and President Hefner has allocated the resources to establish the expansion of the space, which is now the game room. This is for student social events, to provide a more attractive, more intimate space than the multi-purpose room now allows. The "Otopiari Tree" area, 138 and 139 is being converted into a dining area for fifty or sixty persons and will be open to any organization on campus on a contract basis. More thought is being given to holding more social events outside the Williams Center such as the Halloween Dance that is planned for Cranston, and using Cranston for other things such as the Offbeat series and the Unicorn series. We look for the involvement of more students to help us meet their needs.
9. Pablo Gion-Fanjul: I'm trying to get all committees filled with student representatives. Now we are having a little problem finding what those committees are. I would like all the committee chairs to give me your phone number so I can see how many students I can put in there. I want student voices to be heard in every single committee.
Karen Klose: This is a report from the Search Committee for the Vice President of Academic Affairs. We have placed ads in the Chronicle of Higher Education twice. Ads will also appear in Black Issues in Higher Education, Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, and Women in Higher Education In addition President Hefner is sending a "Dear Colleagues," letter encouraging nominations. SUNY has also announced the position statewide. We currently have thirty-nine applications and five nominations. We are still working on establishing criteria for selection and we wonder why we haven't heard from you. We invite your comments. You can contact us at: Error! Reference source not found. Formal review of applications begins on Monday and we are working.
10. The meeting was adjourned at 5:24 PM
Attendance:
Professional Staff/Management Confidential:
[ ] Sylvia Clarke
[ ] Fabrizio Daloisio
[ ] James Jackson
[ ] Susan Maloney
[ ] Lisa Marrano
[ ] Kevin Michki
[ ] William Ortega
[x] Patrick Rocheleau
[x] Martha Smith
[x] Terry Tzitzis
[ ] Charlene Wiles
Arts, Education, and Humanities:
[x] Candice Brown
[x] Robert Deming
[x] Janet Fairbairn
[x] Carl Farraro
[x] Harry Jacobson
[x] Robert Klassen
[ ] Rose Klassen
[x] Kenneth Lucey
[x] David Ludlam
[x] Lawrence Maheady
[x] George Sebouhian
Natural and Social Sciences:
[x] Seyed-Mahmoud Agazadeh
[x] Nancy Boynton
[x] George Browder
[x] Nancy Gee
[x] Michael Grady
[x] Jon Kraus
[ ] Gary Lash
[x] Kenneth Mantai
[x] Greg Prechtl
[ ] Amin Sarkar
[x] Brenda Joyce Stephens
[x] Richard Weist
[ ] Deborah Welch
Ex. Officio Member:
[x] Tracy Bennett (Interim VP, Admin.)
[ ] Vince Courtney (Governance Chair)
[x] Michael Dmitri (VP Student Affairs)
[x] Len Faulk (Intern VP Academic Affairs)
[x] Pablo Gion-Fanjul (SA President)
[x] Dennis Hefner (President)
[ ] Julie Henry (Council Secretary)
[x] Daniel Jelski (Council Vice-Chair)
[x] Jean Malinoski (VP, Development)
[ ] Jane Romal (Chair, Faculty Council)
[x] Thomas Rywick (Interim Dean, NaSSaPS)
[x] Jacqueline Swansinger (Interim Dean, AaS)
[x] Mojtaba Seyedian (Faculty Senator)
Guests:
Minda Rae Amiran
Chad Drowns
Keith Antosh
Joanne Martonis
Vivian Conover
Naug Brison
Jefferson Westwood
Donald L. Steward